Chapter 45: Damien’s Devote Support.
"The camp is that way."
The remaining Eidolons instinctively looked over their shoulders before realizing they had been mocked.
They roared in fury and charged at Damien without the slightest hint of caution, abandoning whatever discipline the newly awakened priest had drilled into them.
Exactly what Damien wanted.
He calmly drew another arrow.
Whoosh.
The first Eidolon barely took two more steps before the arrow punched straight through its forehead. Its body continued forward for another step before collapsing heavily into the snow.
The remaining two were already on top of him.
Damien immediately slung the bow across his back and pulled out his trusty axe.
The first claw came straight for his face.
Damien leaned aside just enough for it to whistle past before the butt of his axe slammed into the creature’s ribs, forcing it sideways. The second Eidolon took the opportunity to lunge from behind, but Damien twisted around, the axe carving upward and opening a deep gash across its chest.
Neither of them cared.
The wounded Eidolon immediately grabbed the axe’s handle while the other threw itself at Damien, both claws reaching for his throat.
Damien released the weapon without hesitation and ducked beneath the attack.
The two monsters crashed into one another instead.
Before they could separate, Priesty’s ritual staff came crashing down.
Crack!
The staff smashed into the back of one Eidolon’s skull with enough force to drive its face straight into the frozen ground. Its limbs twitched once before going completely limp.
The remaining Eidolon roared and lunged again.
Damien caught his returning axe, stepped into the attack and buried the blade deep into its neck before ripping it free in one violent pull.
The body collapsed at his feet.
Damien slowly walked over to the unconscious Eidolon, raised the axe once more and brought it down cleanly.
Its head rolled several meters through the snow before finally coming to a stop.
Damien looked at Priesty with a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
"Nice teamwork, Priesty... but next time, remember to finish them off."
Priesty lowered its head slightly before letting out a low, almost apologetic growl.
Damien, on the other hand, was already making himself busy. He bent down, picked up the severed Eidolon head by one of its horns, and almost immediately another twisted scheme found its way into his mind.
...
Damien didn’t move from his position. He simply lay in wait as time slowly passed. The sun should’ve risen and fallen by now, though he couldn’t really tell. The blizzard swallowed the sky whole, refusing to let even a single ray of sunlight reach the frozen earth.
Just as Damien expected, after roughly a day, the first scouting parties gradually returned to the Eidolon army. The priest clearly wasn’t satisfied with what they had reported, but it also noticed that one of its scouting parties never returned.
Without much hesitation, it immediately dispatched another group of ten in Damien’s direction.
The frozen forest was just as unforgiving as the frozen wasteland, and today, a group of Eidolons marched confidently through the blizzard.
After walking for a while, they spotted a peculiar sight.
A long staff had been embedded into the snow, and mounted on top of it was a severed head.
Their leader scratched its head before approaching. The others followed close behind. As they drew nearer, they immediately recognized the ritual staff. It belonged to their second in command.
The bloodied head, however, was impossible to ignore.
The leader slowly stepped forward and reached toward the head of its fallen brethren.
The next moment, it suddenly felt a pair of hands clasp around both its legs.
It instinctively looked down and spotted a pair of white antlers barely visible beneath the snow, but before it could even roar, its entire body was violently dragged beneath the frozen ground.
The snow instantly turned crimson as its desperate struggles lasted only a few brief moments before everything fell silent.
The remaining Eidolons froze in place.
They immediately roared in fury and began searching for the hidden enemy, but before another step could even be taken, a second Eidolon was suddenly seized from beneath, disappearing into the snow just as quickly. Blood bubbled to the surface before the forest became deathly silent once again.
At this point, it didn’t matter how primitive the Eidolons were. Every instinct in their bodies screamed at them to run.
Before any of them could flee, black mist rolled across the frozen ground. One after another, black-furred figures slowly emerged from beneath the snow until nearly a dozen undead completely surrounded the remaining white furred scouts.
Priesty was the last to rise. It calmly grasped the ritual staff, pulled it free from the snow before casually tossing the severed head aside.
The surviving Eidolons roared and charged together, choosing to break through the encirclement with brute force. Priesty immediately met the first one head on, its ritual staff crashing into the creature’s shoulder hard enough to send it stumbling sideways, where two undead immediately pounced on it together.
Another Eidolon tore straight through the stomach of one of Damien’s undead, but before it could pull its claws free, another black furred undead wrapped both arms around its neck while a third buried its claws deep into its ribs.
The forest descended into complete chaos. One Eidolon managed to throw two undead off its body before Priesty’s staff came crashing into the side of its skull, knocking it directly into another undead that immediately ripped open its throat.
Another attempted forcing its way through the encirclement, only to find four undead blocking its path. They dragged it down together.
The remaining Eidolons fought desperately, but the numerical advantage slowly overwhelmed them. One after another they were dragged to death until the last roar finally faded beneath the raging blizzard.
Only then did Damien casually walk over from a short distance away, quietly inspecting the battlefield while the undead finished tearing apart the last traces of resistance.
"They fight much better if I actively control them with my mind, although it makes it difficult for me to focus on fighting my own battles... perhaps I will find a way to train them better".
Damien glanced in the direction of the Eidolon priest, the priest’s strategy was feeding him with an army of his very own, just what he needed before returning to the human camp.
"You know what apprentice Priest, I don’t care what anyone says about you, you definitely deserved that promotion".